Japanese Beginner Phrases Podcast 8

Beginning Japanese Conversational Phrases #8: Likes

Today's podcast will look at how to say "I like..."

Let's practice this construction with a few new vocabulary words. You may want to jot down a few sentences for memorization or try to construct your own sentences. Feel free to stop by the forums to try out your own sentences.

The word for cat is ねこ neko. And earlier we heard "I like pizza" is ピザが好きです。 piza ga suki desu.

Can you think how to say, I like cats? Note the "I" is not necessary.

ねこ が すき です。neko ga suki desu.

Let's say you are more of a dog person. Dog in Japanese is いぬ inu

How do you say, "I like dogs."?

いぬ が すき です。inu ga suki desu.

With a dictionary, you can find any noun you like for this construction. Just say what you like followed by が すき です ga suki desu.

Let's finish this with a very useful sentence every student of Japanese should know.

にほんご が すき です。nihongo ga suki desu.

This means I like Japanese.

Listen to this question and answer.

にほんご が すき です か？Nihongo ga suki desu ka?

はい、にほんご が すき です。Hai, Nihongo ga suki desu.

I hope that is true for you too. Next podcast will cover a few common language words.

Japanese Beginner Phrases Podcast 9

Beginning Japanese Conversational Phrases #9: Countries

Today's podcast will look at how to say nationalities and languages

In many cases, if you know the country name, you can easily come up with the language by adding 'go' and the people by adding 'jin.'

Here is how you say Japan the country.

日本 nihon

And the Japanese language

日本語 nihongo

Notice we simply added 語 go to 日本 nihon

To say a Japanese person, take nihon and add 人 jin

日本人 nihonjin

Adding go and jin is very handy as it works with any country or language. Let's practice.

The word for China is

中国 chuugoku

Can you guess how to say a Chinese person? Hint add jin

中国人 chuugokujin

And how do you say the chinese language? Hint add go

中国語 chuugokugo

See how easy this is? Let's try Korea. Korea in Japanese is

韓国 Kankoku

How do you say a Korean person?

韓国人 kankokujin

And the Korean language?

韓国語 kankokugo

One more. The word for France is

フランス furansu

How would you say the French language?

フランス語 furansugo

and the French people?

フランス人 furansujin

As a rule just remember to add 'go' for the language and 'jin' for the people. This doesn't always work since not every country is named after its language. We will look at this in the next podcast.

Japanese Beginner Phrases Podcast 10

In many cases to say the word for a country's language and people is simply to add 'go' and 'jin' respectively after the country's name.

Of course this doesn't always work since not every country is named after its language.

Let's look at the United States or America. In Japanese this is

アメリカ amerika

Can you guess how to say an American person?

アメリカ人 amerika jin

But in America we don't speak American we speak English. I remember many years ago when teaching basic English to Japanese elementary school students, the children would often ask if I spoke amerikago. Well, I don't speak amerikago, I speak eigo.

The word for the English language is

英語 eigo

Here is how you say England, the country:

イギリス igirisu

And an English person is

イギリス人 igirisu jin

We will pick up on asking language related questions in the next podcast.